You may not believe this, but I went to church on Sunday. The Electric Church, that is, to worship at the altar of Jimi Hendrix. Actually, I was at Tower Records to check out the latest batch of releases from Loompanics Press–slim, fascinating volumes on stuff like lock-picking, surviving in…
As the mayor of Phoenix, he pushed for a dress code in local public schools. As a candidate for governor, he called for a statewide dress code. Now Paul Johnson may finally get his wish–at least at one Phoenix public school. Shortly after his third-place finish in the 1994 Democratic…
Jerry Brock slowly leans over and to his right, stretching slightly to reach the candy jar stashed behind his office desk. Very deliberately, he opens the wrapper to a piece of hard candy, and precisely places the morsel in his mouth. The ritual gives him a moment to contemplate disturbing…
Constable Burt Alvord, who served Willcox in the 1890s, made news when it was discovered that he used the law enforcement office as a front for his other profession–robbing trains. As the story goes, Alvord left behind his partner in crime, “Three-finger” Jack Dunlap, after Dunlap had been shot. Dunlap…
The letters “WPA” are stamped on the exterior of the buildings that make up Picacho Elementary School. That’s because the buildings date to the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program launched in the 1930s. Students at Picacho Elementary, which is located near Picacho Peak south of Casa Grande, are…
La Locanda, 10201 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 998-2822. Hours: Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 5 to 10:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 5 to 9 p.m. Some scientists speculate that biology is the key to understanding human happiness. Chemical balance, smooth neurological function, even something in our…
Say you’ve got this wise and war-weary colonel living in Montana around the turn of the century. Say he’s got three pretty-boy sons–the eldest levelheaded, the middle wild and prodigal, the youngest sweet and sensitive. What do you need to turn this scenario into an epic tear-jerker Western in the…
Nobody’s Fool is to Paul Newman’s career what Scent of a Woman was to Al Pacino’s–generously, a “character study”; more frankly, a blatant vehicle, existing for no reason other than to give a great actor a chance to charm us. It’s a much better, much less addlebrained picture than Scent,…
Red Rock West, the splendid, tight-as-a-drum feature debut of the young writer/director John Dahl, was a comic thriller about a guy trying to get out of a small town. The hero was a decent, honorable young man who tells a tiny lie to get a job, then realizes with horror…
Alice Tatum Piano (TTC) The only things missing from longtime Valley artist Alice Tatum’s new CD are cocktails and cigarettes; Piano is an exercise in soft, spare, lounge-ready vocal gymnastics. The singer caresses 13 standards, accompanied only by the subtle keyboard work of locals Chuck Marohnic, Charles Lewis, Phil Strange,…
Remember that TV mail-order albums like Country Gold and The Best of Floyd Cramer were available on almost-obsolete eight-track cartridges well into the Eighties? Now the Nineties has its version of this phenomenon: Recent TV titles like Soft Rock of the ’80s and The Best of John Denver are being…
Just when you thought there was no possible musical configuration left after grunge-goth-speed-death-metal-neo-punk-post-New Wave-bubblegum-pop-etc., along comes homo-core. Specifically, along comes Pansy Division. Jon Ginoli, Chris Freeman and Danny Panic are the self-proclaimed Pansies, three San Franciscans whose music is from the late-Seventies, early-Eighties melodic punk school and whose lyrics celebrate,…
The Immortals can rest easy. Richard Burbage, David Garrick, Edmund Kean, Sir Henry Irving, the divine Sarah Bernhardt, John Barrymore, Sir John Gielgud, Lord Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Sir Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole, Nicol Williamson, Jonathan Pryce, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mel Gibson, Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes and, now, even…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is arguably Shakespeare’s most exquisitely wrought piece of dramatic construction. Three tales intermingle to weave a magical web of three comic styles. Sophisticated romantic comedy featuring witty ripostes is the manner of the court creatures, ruled by Theseus and his new bride, Hippolyta. The rude mechanicals,…
A few minutes after pulling into the dusty parking lot of a huge barn just outside Goodyear, Raimondo Fontana puts down the tailgate on his ancient Ford pickup and starts checking his roosters. He has brought four of them for tonight’s derby, two red ones and two blacks, and darting…
Asasn is over where the I and the Z in “revitalization” yawn in blown-out, three-foot-tall alphabet in front of him, filling in the characters with the blasphemous Glidden spray paint provided by the friendly folks at Pioneer Ford. A splash of bright red, and he stands back, intrigued: “That’s like…
From the beginning, Rich Brydle says, he heard rumors about improper purchasing procedures at the Maricopa Community College District. Brydle, a former employee in the district’s purchasing department, says memos had been written and reprimands issued to Gary Mandarino, another purchasing employee who was in charge of buying computer software…
Veteran Arizona Republic reporter David Schwartz lost his job last month after it was revealed that he impersonated Valley attorney and former appellate judge Bruce Meyerson, allegedly to impress a woman he wanted to date, Meyerson confirmed last week. Meyerson says, “Obviously, it’s outrageous. It’s an intrusion into my privacy…
Recently asked by a magazine writer what he wanted chiseled on his tombstone, pioneering skin-flick maestro Russ Meyer cited a quotation directed at him by Charles H Keating Jr. some 25 years ago: “More than anyone else in his time, Russ Meyer was responsible for the decay of values in…
The appearance of Chevys on the glitzy Camelback corridor continues a disturbing trend along this high-profile strip. While several glittering, one-of-a-kind restaurants still dot the stretch between 20th and 40th streets–Christopher’s, Vincent’s, RoxSand, the new Tarbell’s–the street seems headed in an increasingly dubious direction. First of all, it’s becoming home…
Chevys, 2650 East Camelback, Phoenix, 955-6677. Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. On Wall Street, they’re called analysts. At the racetrack, they’re called touts. In the business world, they’re called consultants. They’re all people who claim they can make…
It seemed absurd a few months ago to read the obituaries of Eugene Ionesco. Hadn’t he been dead for years? Was this a variation on the old joke about Franco? Overshadowed by the genius of Samuel Beckett, Ionesco’s plays have seemed like literary footnotes from the past, ranking with those…
